NAACP to Tampa: For Juneteenth, find Robert Meacham, a slave who became senatorPosted in Articles, Biography, History, Media Archive, Slavery, United States on 2021-06-14 02:32Z by Steven |
NAACP to Tampa: For Juneteenth, find Robert Meacham, a slave who became senator
Tampa Bay Times
2021-06-12
Paul Guzzo, Tampa Bay LIfe Reporter
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/G7BUNQ3MDFGKZB3GNT33HFJIGE.jpg) This portrait of Robert Meacham was taken around 1870. Meacham was an enslaved man who was later elected Florida senator. [Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory] |
He was buried in the erased College Hill Cemetery believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery’s parking lot.
TAMPA — Robert Meacham was an enslaved man who became a Florida state senator pushing for educational opportunities for Black children.
“Robert Meacham is the type of man who deserves a street named for him,” said Fred Hearns, the curator of Black history at the Tampa Bay History Center. “Maybe even a statue.”
But he doesn’t even have a marked grave.
Meacham is among the more than 1,200 buried in Tampa’s erased College Hill Cemetery for Blacks and Cubans, believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery’s parking lot.
June 19 is Juneteenth, the day commemorating the anniversary of when in 1865 the enslaved in Texas were freed. It serves as the day to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States…
…Meacham was born in Gadsden County in 1835. His mother was an enslaved woman. His father was her white owner.
As a child, Meacham rode alongside his father in the family buggy and was educated. But, when he turned 18, Meacham was taken to Tallahassee to “fulfill the role of a house-servant for an affluent Leon County family.” When his father died, Meacham became that family’s “property.”…
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